Category: Company B

“The Pillowman” won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Play after it was presented in London in 2003. It also was nominated for a Tony Award in 2005 in New York. On this outing I don’t think it will be similarly nominated in any such category in the Sydney Theatre Awards. The play is the same but clearly the production is not. This is the painful risk the playwright must take in the collaborative minefield of the Theatre. This play is set in a Totalitarian State somewhere, sometime. When it was done in 2003 and in 2005 in London…

A new play commissioned by Company B from Brendan Cowell after he won THE PHILIP PARSONS YOUNG PLAYWRIGHT’S AWARD in 2005 called RUBEN GUTHRIE, playing in the B Sharp Space Downstairs, is blessed. It is blessed with a clear unfussy staging by the director Wayne Blair; by the wonderful look through the work of Jacob Nash (Set and Costume) and the Lighting by Luiz Pampolha (the third design mentioned in this series of notices); and most fortunately by the terrific performance of Toby Schmitz. Here is a performance of such miraculous ease: intelligence, dexterously skillful voice and body work. His…

At the Belvoir Theatre, Company B under the auspices of Neil Armfield presented a relatively new Australian Play, THE SEED by Kate Mulvany. Originally presented in the 80 odd seater downstairs as part of the 2007 B Sharp Season, an annually curated season of Co-operative Theatre Companies, the play has been invited to play in the Main House Upstairs. This is a much larger space (300 odd seats). The experiential heat of a close space often covers the faults of a play. But in this bigger space the play is exposed at a comfortable distance from the emotional breaths and…